The Internet of things is an important component of the new generation of information technology, and its English name is “The Internet of things”. As the name implies, the Internet of things is the Internet in which things are connected together. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Internet Report, published by the ITU, defines the Internet of Things as a network which connects any things to the Internet through information sensing devices such as a quick response code identification device, a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) apparatus, an infrared sensor, a global positioning system and a laser scanner etc. according to an agreed protocol, to perform information exchange and communication, so as to achieve intelligent identification, positioning, tracking, monitoring and management.
An M2M concept is often introduced in the Internet of things, and can be interpreted as Man to Man, Man to Machine and Machine to Machine. In essence, in the man to machine interaction and machine to machine interaction, it mostly aims at achieving man to man information interaction. M2M networks are the main presentation form of the Internet of Things at this stage, and the M2M networks include machine to machine communication networks, man to machine communication networks and machines to man communication networks. Devices in the M2M networks primarily include M2M terminals, M2M gateways, and M2M servers.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of the Internet of Things system according to the existing technology. As shown in FIG. 1, the Internet of Things may be classified as a private Internet of Things (which is generally orientated to provide services in a single organization), a public Internet of Things (which provides services to the public or a large user group based on the Internet), a community Internet of Things (which provides services to an associated “community” or organization group) etc. At the same time, at this stage, the Internet of Things has a large number of applications in different industries, including smart agriculture, smart grids, intelligent transportation, intelligent logistics, intelligent medical health, intelligent home etc. In particular, these industries all deploy their own professional Internet of Things respectively, including corresponding professional Internet of Things/M2M devices for example platform devices such as terminals, gateways and servers etc.
As providers of public communication services, telecommunication operators also play a role as service providers of public Internet of Things when they provide Internet of Things/M2M services. For terminals of the private Internet of Things, the community Internet of Things and the professional Internet of Things in various industries, at this stage, as the service providers of the public Internet of Things, the telecommunication operators are lack of effective technical means to implement unified management of terminals and achieve services.